I’m not sure why I seem to have had more trouble with the Aeropress than other people, but today it came out well and I want to share.
I ground the coffee pretty fine, at 18 on my 1zpresso JX-Pro. This is finer than I use for pourover, but not nearly as fine as I use for Turkish. I put 12 grams of coffee into the Aeropress, and slowly poured 180 grams of hot water over it. I let that sit for about 40 seconds then started pressing. I added a little more water to the pressed cup to dilute it, and it is nicely balanced. For the longest time my cups had been far too sour, but this came out tasty.
I think my problem before was too much coffee and too little water.
Congratulations! Yeah, the more water you add, the more extraction you get.
Congrats!
I haven’t yet made a really nice cup in my AeroPress. I keep making them waaaay too bitter.
I found that grinding coarser for aeropress yielded better tasting cups, almost as coarse as pourover.
I also use 2 filters. Seems to give a better tasting cup, possibly due to reduced fines and increased pressure required for extraction, especially with coarser grinds.
Water temperature is important too. I do 97-100 for light roasts and 93-96 for medium roasts.